The facelifted Renault Megane RS 265 Cup made its first appearance in Malaysia last night, at the launch of the Malaysia Super GT racing event. Before we go any further, this is not a market launch of the hot hatch – it’s just been unveiled as the official car for Malaysia Super GT.

Malaysia Super GT is billed as the country’s first “corporate motorsports event,” and bears no relation to Japan’s Super GT series. Organised and managed by Formula IRIS Racing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IRIS Corporation (the developer and manufacturer of MyKad), the motorsport competition, planned to kick off in 2015, is open to all Malaysian-registered corporations.

A total of 24 corporate teams, made up of their respective employees, will compete over five race weekends at the Sepang circuit, comprising sprint, endurance and one-make events.

The 24 teams will be racing identical Megane RS 265 Cups, having undergone motorsport training to enable them to take on roles such as drivers, mechanics, technicians or pit crew.

The idea is to use motorsports as a base to develop corporate team spirit and camaraderie, as well as to create exposure for the companies, according to Formula IRIS Racing MD Datuk Vincent Leong. The cost for all this? A cool RM390,000, we’re told, and that includes the car, training and competition fees.

As you can see from the pictures, the facelifted Megane RS 265 Cup here has been quite thoroughly stripped out and race-prepped. There’s a roll cage, fire extinguisher and a racing seat with harness – but we understand race specifications and regulations have yet to be finalised, so the cars could be specced differently from what you see here, come 2015.

The big diamond face brings the hot Megane in line with the current Clio, Captur and Koleos, but there are no mechanical changes. Beneath that reshaped bonnet sits the same 2.0 litre four-cylinder turbo that feeds 265 hp and 360 Nm of twist to the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox. The standard car does the century sprint in six seconds before hitting a 250 km/h top speed; with all the calories shed, these racers should do even better.

So no, you can’t buy a Megane RS 265 facelift yet (not unless you do it here through a registered company, that is!) but Renault Malaysia is contemplating introducing the model to the public sometime in the future.

While most dream of the future, Jonathan Tan dreams of the past, although he's never been there. Fantasises much too often about cruising down Treacher Road (Jalan Sultan Ismail) in a Triumph Stag that actually works, and hopes this stint here will snap him back to present reality.

I wonder if is this really a race car or just a stripped down production car to look like a race car? If it is really a race car/track car, you don’t need the ICE unit or climatic control unit. It adds weight to the car and your ears will be just on the radio with your pit crew.

thats the fastest front wheel drive car in the world as per i know and megane is famous as one of the best track car even though they have alternative options for a daily usage which makes it different then any other cars on the track and road.But i agree that it looks like the production car which i guess will be tweaked once they all are on the race.

TCEAS should consider updating the Fluence to this look as well. When it was introduced in Korea (2 years late) sales sky rocketed. The front end we get is the one that was launched 2 years ago in Korea, at the same time the rest of the world got the face of this Megane. This is the version that should have been introduced in Malaysia in the first place, if they want good sales.

Yeah sure. You talk a lot of garbage for someone who’s concept of racing is probably going downhill Genting Ah Beng style at dangerous speeds in a Myvi. If you rly do drive a RWD car, I hope you oversteer off the Karak highway and spare us of your fantastic level of stupidity.

And our MyKad remains a promise unfulfilled – it was billed as a smart identity card that can incorporate tonnes of things in it (driving license, bank account info, etc etc.) but seems that the maker forgot the racing fee for this venture.

Ultimately the population at large pays for this. Oh well – I guess just another happy, sun shiny day in Malaysia.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. But I surely would like to see a race between them two. A 2011 WRX STI with bigger turbo (320 hp) driven by Tommi Mäkinen did the Nordschleife in 7:55, the Megane RS 275 did it in 7:54.36. However the WRX drove a longer distance…

RM390K for a race prepped Megane 265, training and entry fees? That’s incredibly cheap, even for a debut local racing event. Typically, privateers need to set aside at least 1-2mil just for one season (and that’s probably before getting sponsors on board). If you have a 1mil stashed aside and don’t know how to spend it, it can’t get much more glamorous than this.

But then again, that money is chump change for a hotel chain or large franchise. Might as well write it off as ‘marketing initiative’ and take a chance.

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